Straight from the heart: 25. Displacement

This house, which was once my home, has (I hope) been sold today.  It marks the end of an era.  An end to a large chapter of my life.  And the beginning of feelings of displacement, as I search for a new place to call ‘home’.

When I bought this house 12 and half years ago, it was a time when my relationship had felt secure; and I was willing to make a financial commitment, with the man that became my husband.  Up until that point I had been completely independent, having already owned two previous homes, and coped very well on my own, thank you.  But somehow, it seemed like the next most natural step, it had felt like the right thing to do, at the time.

After his children left to live with their mum, my ex, all but moved in with me, even though he had his own place still.  It wasn’t at my request that he moved in, he’d just decided he didn’t want to be on his own, in his own home any more.  And that was it, he never left.

Moving on..

It became time to move on again, and that’s when I found this place.  This house talked to me, from the moment I saw it from outside, before I had even knocked on the door.  I knew that I had found the right place.  As I walked round on my first viewing, I had already pictured how I was going to put love back into this house.  It had been lonely for too long, with it’s single occupant, who had been here since the day it was built.  She had got married, raised a family and was eventually left alone for years, until her son decided to look after her.  I did a lot for her before the final day; and I always thought that she seemed happy to be selling her home on to me.  Almost as if she knew I would indeed continue to take care of it.

And that’s just what I did.  However, I think I did a bit more than she might have anticipated!

Roughing it

We both planned and designed our home, but decor and furnishings etc, were my department.  All my furniture, bar the essentials were put in storage, and within 6 months of roughing it; all building works were completed, the house was completely renovated, extended, re-arranged and bought up to date.  It was a tough six months, of sleeping rough, being cold and having no kitchen to speak of.  While this was going on, my ex still had his house, and was able to avoid most of the discomfort, I had to endure.  But, it was done.  I worked hard on making this house, our home, my home, transforming it over the years, until it became what it is now.

Concerns

It wasn’t long before my concerns for my financial security were proved right, I had made a mistake.  A big mistake.  And there was nothing I could do about it, except to bide my time, watch, listen and learn.  In the end, it proved to be a very expensive mistake, and I have since spent a long time contemplating it.  I could have taken action or fought for it, but decided it just wasn’t worth it.  Money has never been my king, so I opted for the peaceful process, which proved just as painful.  But anyway, long story, short, I got my fingers severely burnt!

Bear in mind, that I had been separated from ex since Oct 2012, he had initially said he would leave, but due to circumstances we’ve had to share the same roof space.  And still do to this day, which has not been easy by any definition, the last 15 months being possibly the worst of my life.

My snug

I have digressed a little, but I suppose the point I am trying to make is that, there were a lot of ‘beginnings’, and ‘endings’ in this house.  These walls have witnessed and absorbed so much of my life.  It echoes my unhappiness when I am here on my own.  My home, for the last 15months, became two rooms, my bedroom and my ‘snug’, I have given up on using the rest of the house, unless it’s necessary.  My snug is where my world happens, it is my place of peace, calmness, inspiration, creativity, imagination and so on.  My snug is, ‘MY’ space.  My bedroom, is for rest, rejuvenation and quiet times, or for when I want to feel music in me.  Both spaces are my sanctuaries. no stress is allowed across either of these rooms’ thresholds.

But going back, it was the first time I had ever properly lived with someone, actually shared a life.  At the beginning, we both has so many hopes and dreams about our future, as it was back then.  We have shared some precious moments here, there have been many occasions when we have created memories, on our own or with other people.   There was once love here, but that too has since evaporated, dissipated into thin air, like all other kind feelings, and nice thoughts.  Now I am reminded of arguments, discussions, conversations, tears and so on, as I go from room to room.

This house

This house, is also the place, where I first seriously became ill, and continue to be so, this is the place where my world fell apart, and bad health became a constant companion.  I had aways thought having the hospital so close by, was a good thing. But I didn’t appreciate just how much time I would get to spend there, for one reason or another.  As my health deteriorated, and so did everything else.

But I loved this house, it was ‘me’ all over.  But since things went wrong, I have come to see that I need to create a new home, somewhere else, another place where I can start my dreams and hopes afresh.  This house is the only thing that still binds us together, mentally and emotionally, I left this place a long time ago, now I need to physically follow it through

In the last few years, this house has seen so much anger, resentment, bitterness, bereavement, and the true colours of our individual rainbows.  It has seen the end of many things, and now the planning stages of new horizons.

It is time now for someone else to love it.

Sharon Carter-Wray

(16^th January 2015)

Link to: Turned to stone

Update:

On the whole, it was the best thing I could ever have done. I am not one to generally walk away, but this time it was about saving my own life from an inevitable misery that laid ahead.  Now, I am a happy person.  Now, I have a stress-free life, unless it’s brought to my door like bunches of flowers or via the telephone line…

It’s been nearly 4 and a half years since I moved on, and the place I found (by luck more than anything), has become my home and sanctuary.  I had many battles to fight along the way, with my physical, emotional and mental health. As well as a mountain of excess baggage, I desperately needed to off load.  But, I got here in the end, and feel a hell of better for it.

Fallout

It took me a long time, to deal with the fallout of everything that had happened in the last 4/5 years. It took me much longer than I had expected to fully heal and repair myself, after all it was a traumatic experience.  There are pieces from that past, that are still wedged into me.  These fragments will be reawakened from time to time, when triggered by someone’s words or behaviour toward me.  I have a very quick flinch response in that respect.

It’s a fact I can’t help, but it serves to protect my fragile heart and feelings, because I absolutely refuse to ever walk down that same path or road again.

It may well have ruined me, in a way that I find it difficult to visualise living with another man again. Ruined me to the point, I don’t know if I will ever trust another man; and always look at actions and behaviour, more than whatever words he may say.

I feel something inside of me has hardened.  I’ve a much sturdier shell than before, to deflect as much negativity as I can.  I have a different mindset.  I am less tolerant and more vocal about not accepting bad behaviour and manners.  But most of all I try to live the life I often speak of.

I am still very soft within, but that part of me is now slightly harder to reach.  Sx❤️

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Straight from the heart: 24. The breakdown of a relationship

The opposite of love

People often mistakenly think that the opposite of love, is hate… but they are so, so wrong.  Hate, like love is something that involves passion, there is true emotional feeling behind it.  You can hate something or someone with so much passion, that it might as well be love, for the sheer power or strength you put behind it to bring those feelings out.

The opposite of love, is surely indifference; you simple don’t care anymore, it doesn’t matter to you, you don’t ‘feel’ anything, it’s almost irrelevant.

I did love my ex-husband.  However, I am not sure if I ever truly fell ‘in’ love with him, for me to fall ‘out’ of love with him!

The vicious cycle

But I knew my feelings for him became less and less, as time went by.  It had become a vicious cycle, I saw too much of his ugliness, to appreciate what good was left.  The endless number of futile arguments/ discussions/ debates, always about the same things, took care of that.   And they seemed to revolve on a quarterly basis.  I got tired of having the same conversations repeatedly, that would eventually, (in spite of any initial well-intended attempts to achieve balance again), lead nowhere.  Until another 3 months or so passed, and we would have the same conversation all over again, each time trying to gauge if we had moved forward, backward or stayed the same.  I never felt any motion.

In the meantime, he continued with ‘his’ life, and I neither moved up or down on his agenda.  In fact, I always told him that I took position no: 8, in his life.  It was a position I soon realised I had to learnt to accept, there was no point in insisting I be higher up than that.  It was made abundantly clear to me, that his work, his hobbies, his friends and his family came first.  Always.  And on those very few occasions when I held his time or attention, I began to question his sincerity, doubted his actions, and always knew there was an ulterior motive.  He had a “get round to it” attitude, and that was used toward me as well.  So therefore, I always had to wait – for everything.  But if I didn’t put him first?   Oh my goodness, he became like a brattish child, constantly whining, and wanting attention.

Stepping away

I wised up to his game a long while back, and every time these ‘chats’ happened, I took another step further away from him, creating distance in all senses.

I should have heeded my silent alarms, that in fact this was his second time round.

All the time he was busy blaming his ex-wife, I couldn’t help but notice and acknowledge reasons, why she would have been unhappy; and why things had perhaps gone wrong for her.  He was completely blameless, of course.  As he had said himself, he just “worked his arse off”, to earn a living.  But that was all he did.  Even when she was suffering with depression, and needed his love and support, he did nothing.  He gave her no support, no help, no love, no kindness whatsoever.  And then wondered why she picked up and left, leaving him behind with 2 kids.  Especially as it was after a number of affairs on her part, and they had been ‘trying’ to ‘save’ their marriage.

History repeating itself

I once said to him about 4 years ago, that he was repeating his own history, his own life story all over again.  He was shocked by my intuition, but then he always was.  But he was never ‘ready’ to talk about his previous life and marriage.  Even after 16 years of being with me, he still took no blame, and still couldn’t bring himself to admit that he’d ‘fucked up’.  Harder still, was his denial that he was doing the same things to me.  But in the end, it cost him dearly, he had already started the process of losing me… about the only thing he ever actually got round to doing.

You can spend a life time with someone, and still never really know them.  Or you may have suspicions about certain personality traits, and wonder where they came from, what was the influence for a persons’ behaviour.  But all the time we are happy, we never really see the ugly side, and we certainly don’t go looking for it.  But it’s when things are not so good anymore, for instance during or after an argument, that we notice their negative qualities.  That’s when we see their selfishness, tightness, temper, and experience the venom they can spit or speak – I suppose all the qualities of hatred.

The ugliness

My ex, became very ugly.  Ridiculous almost, with some of the things he did to ‘get at me’.  Initially, I was so hurt and frustrated by his actions.  I couldn’t get my head round why he could do the things he was doing, or the fact he would sink so low.  But each time he did something, it usually backfired, which meant he was the one left worse off.

But it didn’t stop him, even now that we are divorced, (but forced to live under the same roof), he still does petty things to wind me up.  He is like that child, forever burning his fingers, and I wonder why he still hasn’t learnt.

I had learnt my lesson well with my ex, I had learnt him well, I had seen the hidden dragon on too many occasions to ignore its’ existence.  But he didn’t frighten me, not with his words or his actions.  He already knew he had no way of winning any war with me, so he just made things awkward.  He knew all the time he lost his head, I just got stronger.  I refused to respond to him in the way that he wanted.  And that made him even more angry, but there was nothing he could do with his anger, to hurt me.

Relying on my fears

At this point, I was physically in a bad way, my health problems were savage and prolonged.  But I truly believe, that he was relying on my fears, that:

• My fear of managing due to not working
• My fear of being on my own with my failing health
• Or the fear of starting over again at the age of 49

Would all be enough of a deterrent for me, to stay put to continue with living this life.

But I had become brave.  And all because ‘the lady who saved my life’, asked me one simple question:

“Why are you with him?”

That question burnt a hole in my heart.  As the only answer I had to give, was that I felt responsible for him..

The wake up call

I had picked him up when he was down on his knees, and somehow I still felt responsible and continued to do so.  That was the wake up call!

So, he never had a clue just how elated my heart felt, on the day when I told him:

“We don’t have a marriage anymore”.

I had known it for so long, but finally I could no longer hold the words back.

When a relationship is ending, someone has to be responsible and admit that it won’t work anymore, that you’ve come to the end of the line.

No one wants to be the be first to say it.

But someone has to.

Sharon Carter-Wray

(7^thJanuary 2015)

Update:

To this moment, that day has been the most significant one in my life to date!  There are course other meaningful days, but none that made me realise the absolute power I hold within myself.

That day, brought about a change, that would be forever lasting.  It was the day, I took control of my life again, and decided that I valued my happiness over all else.

So now, whomever enters my life, has to keep the smile on my face and not wipe it off.  Simple as that.  Sx ❤️

Link to: I thought you were my hero